170 Comments

From today's DOD press briefing:

MS. SINGH: To my knowledge, everything is ready to go. It is just a matter of positioning this pier and causeway into Gaza so that we can start flowing aid off of the pier. But yes, in terms of contracted drivers, that has been settled. So that is in place. We have a distribution partner that's already ready to start distributing that aid once it's on the ground and, you know, ready to roll off the pier. So yes, we are ready to start the execution of this mission as soon as we can move it into place.

Q: Can you state who the contractor is and who the partner is?

MS. SINGH: I can just tell you it's a third-party contractor, but that's it. Yes.

https://www.defense.gov/News/Transcripts/Transcript/Article/3773617/deputy-pentagon-press-secretary-sabrina-singh-holds-a-press-briefing/

Expand full comment

yeah we'll "circle back" after our circle-jerk around the circular file that protects all our top secret national security docs

Expand full comment

Much worse than the national epidemic of obesity is the perennial American epidemic of insecurity.

Expand full comment

Sounds like Ryder needs to replace a lot of old trucks, so better to get them mortared on the Gaza beach and have USG buy new ones for the company.

Expand full comment

I’m concerned that we aren’t funding enough factions in this conflict. Is it possible we could create a few more groups to pit against one another and then fund all of them as well?

Expand full comment

Take it to the limit. Fund each individual separately into a Hobbesian nightmare.

Expand full comment

Anyone who feels they aren't receiving sufficient aid can send a request to deathtoamerica@state.us.gov and their application will be considered.

Expand full comment

Truly a great idea. Thank you. Now we know who to blame when the trucks start rolling into the ocean.

Expand full comment

Probably. Who you want to add?

Expand full comment

Yes. YES.

Expand full comment

The ongoing level of complete incompetence, at the Command level, of our military under the current shithead Regime… just freaking staggering.

Expand full comment

If we could just solve for white rage...

Expand full comment

Yeah. That and Climate Change.

And maybe those fascist Christian Nationalists.

Expand full comment

Neither of which, exist.

Expand full comment

I don’t know about that – I try to live by the 10 Commandments and I believe America, its systems, and its people have done more good in the world than any other nation (proportionally).

Obviously I’m a danger to all of civilization.

Expand full comment

Especially if you are a white older male - the christian thing caps it off.

Expand full comment

I try not to be an AH, but there’s not an ounce of beta blood in me. I’ll be 70 in 6 wks, so I’m beyond saving. 🤣

Expand full comment

John, please understand, my comment about “fascist Christian Nationalists” was extreme satire. I humbly and gratefully surrendered my unworthy-degenerate life to Christ 34 years ago.

Expand full comment

Oh, I understood perfectly, but I guess the intended satire in my response wasn’t pointed enough. Sorry to have made you explain. All good!

Expand full comment

While I appreciate your sentiments, American hegemony brought about the Ukrainian conflict.

Ask Vicky, "pastry lady".

Expand full comment

There’s a conceptual difference between “doing good” and “hegemony.” They are not antonyms.

I’m well aware that the U.S. State Dept has a REAL problem with holdover Cold Warriors. Nuland is personally responsible for any number of geopolitical disasters. What I don’t understand is how she was able to bamboozle Condi Rice and Bush 43 into the Bucharest Declaration that stated Georgia and Ukraine “will” become members of NATO. That was like waving a red flag in front of a Russian “bull.”

Expand full comment

NONE of which exist.

Although, maybe sooner or later white people might get pissed, but I can't see them sticking together against anything.

Expand full comment

Exactly.

Expand full comment

U mean those Christian Nationalists who don’t support genital mutilation 🤬

Expand full comment

Precisely

Expand full comment

Every time I hear that, I think to myself..."How is that clown not in prison?"

Expand full comment

Priorities!...:)

Expand full comment

RobMc,

Sadly is isn't just under this clown show of an administration. As Chris points out--and my guess is he's writing about 2004-2009ish timeframe when the E5 NCO makes rational, tactically sound recommendations, and the 'Command' enables the loss of 'TCNs...brown people who don't count'.

This current group should be hung from their necks till they're dead--but we've been buffaloed by poor leadership since Tommy Franks started this crap in 2001. Was talking with some dudes who were in the initial push into Afghanistan. The CUBs (Commander Update Briefs) were all held EST...the senior leaders could not even be bothered to change their nap schedule to sync up with the war fighters. Criminal.

bsn

Expand full comment

2005-2006, yes.

Expand full comment

We live in a world shockingly lacking in morality and integrity. Was it always like this? Maybe, not always, evil runs rampant and so many do not even recognize it.

Expand full comment

I was in Iraq and Afghanistan, off and on, 2005-2008. Civilian contracting on, you'll never guess, international development projects. Yep. Lots of that happening there in those days, uh huh. (To be fair, we were fully in Iraq before they blew up the Golden Mosque and everything truly went pear-shaped -- and during and after, of course, don't think we stopped doing "development" after that, no sirree). To your points, lots of TCNs, but also the dregs of Western societies as well as the merely incompetent and unfit on the soi-disant civilian side, deciding to "do development" for all the wrong reasons (filthy lucre mostly, nttawwt, but a very close 2nd reason was to be not wherever they used to be). On the first project, Baghdad, we were actually on our own out in the city, although by the time I first went they'd had an impromptu walled compound constructed around the 8 or so city blocks.

All of the military food services (mess halls, to which we had access if we could get there without being killed) were 100% TCN as I recall - and elsewhere in the world, I've worked with so many excellent people having the TCN label. Generally it's a tough gig but a huge leap forward to provide money back home. I don't think it works the same way at all once we're talking about, sorry, Arabs as middlemen. The 'development' scene isn't great (and dramatically worse since Iraq hyperventilated the idea of making money off 'development' *during conflict* -- really, people lost their faculties of reason long before 2020) but the plight of TCNs in sheikh-run countries is horrifying, medieval. I think I'll pretend that that paved the way in some fashion for the abuses condoned in Kuwait and perpetuated thenceforward (i.e. that we didn't invent out of thin air - okay, doesn't make it any better).

Expand full comment

We had a bunch of arrests, and a couple of suicides, because Arabs as middlemen just assume that business involves greased palms.

https://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/19/nyregion/19about.html

Expand full comment

Unfortunately, speaking of people not fit for making it through such circumstances, coming in with fragile psych status is distinctly suboptimal. The fringes of war are existentially different from being in it, and weirdly worse in a lot of ways, for some people.

Expand full comment

Just sad

Expand full comment

I was flew outta Kuwait for mid-tour leave in Aug 06...we were ships passing in the night...

bsn

Expand full comment

I went home for mid-tour leave in August of 2006 -- we might have been on the same plane to Dallas.

Expand full comment

I don’t know how it happened, but I flew into Hotlanta. All west coast flights connections went to Dallas, but not mine.

Bro—they totally shook us down at customs!!! I was like, ‘hey dude, I got terrorist dust on my boots…don’t think I’m a threat!’

Early days of TSA and it has only gotten worse.

bsn

Expand full comment

Yeah, 2001 would have been George W. We grew up in west Texas maybe 80 miles apart from each other. When he came into office I was so proud. Then he started turning Establishment-Swamp-dweller. (Or most likely he already was one…) Final nail in his rep was when he started trashing DJT. Showed his true shit-eating colors. A disgrace to the Republic of Texas. And God knows what other shit he’s poured on our country.

Expand full comment

The PATRIOT Act should have had a hard ending. Here we are 23 yrs later having all electronic communications of Americans captured and warehoused. That Act alone supercharged the Intelligence Community into the monster it is today. Fuck Bush.

Expand full comment

🙌

Expand full comment

Most laws should have a sunset baked in.

bsn

Expand full comment

I’m not sure if this idea is workable in the long run, but one thing in Calif I’d like to see at the national level is the referendum process through which the People can overrule bad laws without any recourse by the assholes in charge.

Expand full comment

I was at a NGAUS (National Guard Association of the United States) conference in 2004. Both Kerry and Bush spoke to us...probably 2-3K Soldiers all in uniform (hungover, it was in Vegas...). Kerry came across like a word that rhymes with rag. Total fool.

Bush came out like a war hero. At the time--I was all in. I looked like a teenage girl at a Back Street Boys concert. Loved the guy...so sad to learn the truth.

"These fbomb people..." is generally directed towards the leftist tyrants these days--but the entire Bush/Cheney admin fall into that category. They will all burn in hell.

bsn

Expand full comment

My world paradigm was shaken for several days when W started trashing DJT. I was truly shaken. Then I stopped my pity party and accepted the fact that W was just another bottom-dwelling swamp creature. A sad and disgusting reality.

Expand full comment

Yeah, W was all over the churches, courting evangelicals and the like, then when he got elected, he was no where to be found. Phony to the core.

Expand full comment

“bottom-dwelling swamp creature” is way too kind of a label.

More likely, most of "These fbomb people..." are garden-variety Traitors.

Simple as that.

Expand full comment

There had better be a special place in hell for these monsters. All of them.

Expand full comment

Well it all started with Custer, then that genius Ned Almond, yes General MacArthur there are ChiComs out there but nothing our “boys” can’t handle. Then behind door #2 came that brilliant leader of men William “Westy” Westmoreland, we have to burn the village to save it. But Monty Hall had door #3 and proving that years and years of sucessful inbreeding could work we got Tommy “I’ll need 1/2 million troops and 12 months to get to Afghanistan” Franks! But wait there’s more! The bonus round supplied us with the hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil Musketeers! Milley, McKenzie and Austin. Proving that low IQ, astute political infighting skills and an uncanny ability to outright lie take the grand prize! Until now….a floating pier, off the coast of Gaza….like a airport barracks full of sleeping Marine sitting ducks in Beruit, Lebanon. What could possibly go wrong….honestly you can’t make this hobucky up…

Expand full comment

I just got a little puke in my mouth. Nice little run down to strip any vestige of the 'We wear the white hats, we are the good guys' narrative I've greedily consumed for nearly 50 years...

bsn

Expand full comment

This isn’t military incompetence.

It’s obedience.

Expand full comment

This is too dark a thought to upvote.

Expand full comment

It’s what’s known as a “Charlie Foxtrot”

Expand full comment

We’re just giving aid to Hamas. It’ll never get to the people. Virtue signaling while playing both sides, AGAIN. We can’t help f up the entire world.

Expand full comment

We've become really good at that last part.

Expand full comment

Thanks for writing and serving. I’ve read a few books this year after learning more about JFK and the possibilities there. I’m embarrassed at the stuff we’ve pulled and continue. From unleashing BIO weapons from ticks to rsv to assignations and regime change. It’s hard to stay lawful when THEY aren’t.

Expand full comment

Don’t forget aids and vaccinations. Anywhere there was Dr Death Fauci.

Expand full comment

I didn’t just want to drone on. Those were bio weapons too

Expand full comment

*WE* aren't effing up the entire world. FJB, Ovomit & Co. All or most of the three-letter groups.

Dubya lost me when I realized bringing all of those muslims after muslims had supposedly flown planes into our buildings made absolutely no sense whatsoever.

The way he says "nuclear"... That should involve jail time at some point.

Expand full comment

We just do what the British do, usually at their behest. They are Lucy and we are Charlie Brown ready to kick the football. And then we take their psychiatric help, too.

Expand full comment

No Chris, the Jews will take it.

Expand full comment

The only acronymn you didn't squeeze in is SNAFU. At current (publicly known) count, sixteen members of the military are dead because of gross incompetence. I don't count the SEALs who "drowned" in that number because SEALs sign up to do SEAL shit, and they love it, and shit happens doing that job. But I expect the number to grow if we keep fucking around and finding out. The same people who live their entire lives screaming "black and brown lives matter" have zero idea (or have selective memory) of what actually happens overseas, but the leadership absolutely knows. They just lie about it, gaslight about it - posing behind podiums - then say with a straight face that they are "spreading democracy." They are spreading something alright, and it ain't that. That last sentence...might have something to do with it.

Expand full comment

Every board game needs its own form of pawns. To be sacrificed for the greater good, I suppose.

A Boy Scout troop (pardon, "Scouting America" troop) could run better ops than the U.S. government in these situations.

Expand full comment

Not any more

Expand full comment

The Scouting Operations = US GOVERNMENT

Expand full comment

Winning hearts and minds. One dead prole at a time!

Expand full comment

You must support the narrative (Iraqi National Police are our friends) at all costs - even if the narrative is a total lie (b/c INP are really immoral thieves and murderers). Anyone not supporting it is a terrorist ( a critical thinker who can plainly see the lie) and will be dealt with by the full weight of the government (punished by the tyrants).

Eg., Lying liars lie and anyone calling out the lie will be lied about by the lying liars.

Expand full comment

I’m convinced the objective of recent and current American foreign policy is to debase the credibility of the U.S. on all matters, and especially on military capability. To wit:

– Clinton’s utter flaccidity as Yugoslavia disintegrated and the Serbians slaughtered one ethnic group after another.

– Rumsfeld’s (Bush’s) “cheaper, faster, better” Iraq invasion dogma (💩)

– Obama’s fellation of the Iranians

– Obama’s 2011/12 purge of general/flag officers (and candidates thereto) from the military if their enthusiasm for DEI was found wanting during personal interview

– Biden’s & Blinken’s redoubled fellation of the Iranians

– Biden’s obscene cowardice in Afghanistan

– Biden’s despicable abandonment of Israel after it suffered the equivalent of 42K 9/11 deaths. The U.S. launched the 20 year GWOT over 3K deaths, and Biden can’t stick with Israel for 6 months after the proportionally equivalent loss of 41K.

It will take a generation of strong, competent leadership to overcome the stench of U.S. governmental behavior over the last 30 years. Where this leadership will come from is a complete mystery.

Expand full comment

Chris, I spent two years in Afghanistan, working with literally tens of thousands of TCNs and Afghans. I tell you plain: the US could not have sustained our own forces in theater without these folks. In the name of “cost savings,” after the Cold War we gutted the military’s organic sustainment capabilities. Not only were the TCNs and Afghans paid shit - a few dollars a day in some cases - the Afghans got neither body armor nor helmets to boot. And the Taliban absolutely delighted in killing and mutilating them on a regular basis. Look up “LOGCAP” sometime. I’m not even a tiny bit surprised this is still going on.

Expand full comment

So Ukraine is just Proxy War 3.0.

Expand full comment

Our military command is focused on pronouns and which bathroom to use while the enemy is not. That should give us complete confidence in an efficient, focused, mission oriented force.

Expand full comment

And the very Best Part is that dead TCN don't count as U.S war dead. During the First US Gulf War, U.S. casualties ran backwards for a number of weeks

I always figured that the pentagon was busy finding ways to reclassify U.S. War Deaths.

Expand full comment

They're just "resting"

Expand full comment

Pining for the fjords?

Expand full comment

You got it. Nobody gets it anymore.

Expand full comment

I hear you. I was just in Hawaii and all the breakfast menus offered some form of Spam. You know what I was singing in my head.

Expand full comment

Chris, I have never taken the time to specifically tell you thank you for your service and welcome home. I had the fortune of being involved in Desert Storm and made it home intact. There are some stories, but they feel so inadequate after the last 20+ years of heavy combat and numerous extended tours.

Expand full comment

Mine was very dull and basically pointless, but thank you. And thank you for your service.

Expand full comment

As one whiskey enthusiast to another - I sincerely hope that what you’ve “implied” in this post is not the case. But the cynic residing in my gut tells me you’re probably right. But we can trust the people in Gaza not to do bad things to our guys (or TCNs), yes?

Expand full comment

We'll see.

Expand full comment

They see both as objects

Expand full comment

Sure! And I’m pretty sure pigs can fly!🤯

Expand full comment

Liberal utilitarianism and dead brown people...

Expand full comment

A combo since 1848…

Expand full comment

Camp Navistar, presented by Taco Bell. It doesn’t get more ‘Murican than that, boy.

The pier has already been rocketed by Hamas who also were shown shooting Gazans who “ stole” food off an aid truck. Those damn Gazans. Don’t they know Hamas gets the aid so it can stay strong to kill the Zionists, and then turns around and sells the food at vastly inflated prices to its “starving” human shields, I mean the suffering Murderstinians, of Gaza. The UN has acknowledged that they deliver all the aid to Hamas. In return for allowing the aid in, Israeli teenage soldiers get killed at checkpoints and the people at Harvard and Foggy Bottom cheer.,This is the first time I know of where one side in a war for its survival has to provision the creeps who attacked it to start the war. But you know Joe Biden is in your side when he says so, amirite? Which coast is Beachhouse Obama vacationing at this week?

Inquiring Commies wanna know.

Risking the lives of unarmed little brown people to drive trucks into the most dangerous place on Earth seems totally progressive to me. The Progs are so brave and stunning.

The only thing worse than being an enemy of America these days is being its friend.

Expand full comment